


Hypothesis in scarlet

by sevenofspade



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie), Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-26
Updated: 2016-04-26
Packaged: 2018-06-04 17:42:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,765
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6668164
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sevenofspade/pseuds/sevenofspade
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Don't bring a formerly brainwashed assassin to a mutant fight.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hypothesis in scarlet

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks are owed to [chiiyo86](http://archiveofourown.org/users/chiiyo86/pseuds/chiiyo86) for the last minute beta.

The man in front of her was not Tony Stark and he was just part metal instead of all metal, but Wanda pushed into his mind anyway; he was with the Avengers and he had seen her, trained his gun on her.

His mind just _caved_.

It was like nothing she'd ever seen. The absence of any push-back against her intrusion made her pitch forward, like someone had taken out the wall against which she was leaning. Pietro caught her, half a breath after she had righted herself.

She scoured the recess of his mind. There had been a wall, once, but it had been broken down by methods much cruder than her own. Beyond the empty ruin of the wall, his outer selfscape -- hah, there was not a word for this, not in Sokovian, not in English, not in German, and so she had had to make her own -- was a barren wasteland.

Wanda walked down what was not so much a well-trodden path as a blazing highway; beyond it were nothing but the faded sepia tones of old photographs. Wanda went deeper. This far down into someone's mind the physical aspects of the outer selfscape started to turn to abstraction.

In Pietro's mind, everything -- except for that one terrible dark space of two days and a bomb like a scar across the sky -- turned to mercury and flowed like water between her fingers. In here, everything turned to cold and snow. When she caught a flake on her tongue, it tasted like blood.

There was a shout from outside -- "Bucky!", who or whatever the hell that was -- and Wanda jerked out of the Winter Soldier's brain. She thought something came with her.

"Bucky!" the Captain repeated, fear and worry and pleading in his voice. Then he saw the red around Wanda and threw his shield.

Wanda raised her hands to bring the red to stop the shield, but the Winter Soldier was closer and caught it. He threw it back.

Wanda stared. There was a red rope streaming from the back of the Winter Soldier's head, where his silver cord should be, and it wrapped around her hand like a leash. She tugged on it; the Winter Soldier jerked and she felt the echo of it deep within her, between muscle and bone, heart and soul.

Pietro picked her up and off and away they went. He let her down near the Chitauri space whale. Tony Stark was there and it was an easy thing to bring forth his fears.

She did not know how to feel about the fact that he had so many of them. For years, she had thought him a thing to be feared, the rider of a red horse and to find out now he was just a man and a fearful mind, at that? 

There was nothing else here for her or Pietro, and so they left.

The miles unfolded under Pietro's feet, like he was the dawn rider and she was Baba Yaga -- no, Wanda, you are mixing your metaphors, if he carries you and you are Baba Yaga, he is the chicken-legged house. Wanda laughed at the image of Pietro with chicken feet and when Pietro stopped running, they were in the dark forests of Southern.

As she stretched her legs and attempted to decide what to do now that Strucker was in an American jail and her vengeance was ticking away into Stark's head, Wanda built cradle for cats with the red thread in her hand.

"Sister," Pietro said and folded his hands around hers, squashing the cradles. "What do we do now?"

"The fight with Stark. There will be damage. We can help," she said. Some part of her wanted to say that they should, but Pietro followed her lead always and in this wording at least he could refuse.

"We should," he said.

"Yes."

It was back-breaking work to not use her powers to help, but she had no wish to draw attention to herself; Pietro's hair was enough for that. It was how the messenger, a boy of eight or nine, found them.

Pietro knelt to talk to him and Wanda turned around. There was buzzing in the red, like mirrors set in front of each other, every image in resonance with the rest.

The Winter Soldier looked back at her from the other side of the plaza. Even from this far away she could see the unnatural red of his eyes. She tugged slightly at the cord, wrapped around her wrist like a friendship bracelet, and he stepped forward, the crowd parting in front of him.

She frowned.

When he reached them, Wanda could feel Pietro vibrating at her back and she thought, as loud and red as she could, "Prove you are no threat".

The Winter Soldier reached into his vest, pulled out a knife and held it out, handle towards Wanda. There was a sickening ease to the movement that could only be born of long practice. Wanda took the knife. Her fingers curled around the handle and when the Winter Soldier let go, her hand fell a few inches under the weight. She handed the knife to Pietro.

They walked into the church the boy directed them to.

There was a metal man with no soul and delusions of godhood, but he would bring her Stark's head on a platter and so she would follow until then.

But first, they would follow the armsdealer Klaw down the coast of Wakanda until he was far enough away that the Wakandans would not perceive Ultron's presence as a threat.

"Thought you were a free man now," Klaw said. "Worked with the Avengers and whatnot."

The Winter Soldier was silent in answer. Wanda felt a was a brief flash of colour through the sepia of his mind -- sky blue -- but when it faded the sepia seemed even duller than before. Wanda tried to coax it back into life -- neither Pietro nor she herself liked this empty shell of a man who followed her around -- but try as she might, the red did not taint the sepia.

The Avengers showed up right after Ultron got the vibranium from Klaw. 

"You two can still walk away," the Captain said. When he saw the Winter Soldier's eyes -- that damned red -- his face turned to marble. "Or not."

"Oh, but we will," Wanda said and the fight was on.

It was not a fight the Avengers won, not once Wanda sent red coursing to green in Banner's mind

Their next stop was in Seoul and there a mind was born. Dr Cho was a worker of miracles -- Wanda would know, should know, she was also one herself. There was a spark of life in the vibranium that had nothing to do with Cho's latent ability. 

Wanda's lips curled up into half a sneer as she tried to see what Dr Cho might have been in another time, in another place, in another life. In another life, she might have spun tempests in teacups, but in this life, she was human and no more. How Wanda envied her.

Were she human, she would have no part of her soul hidden away inside the quicksilver of Pietro's inner self, no pet assassin dogging her steps, no hope of revenge. She envied Dr Cho, but she had made her choice knowingly -- it was not that she regretted her choice, it was that she regretted that it was permanent.

In the cradle, Ultron's mind was born.

It was a beautiful thing, the slow unfolding of a consciousness, and for a moment Wanda lost herself to it. She watched it closely; her unwilling friend at the forefront of her thoughts, to turn him no longer unwilling, no longer her friend.

She wanted a friend -- maybe she even needed one, someone in her life who cared and was not Pietro -- but would not have an unwilling one.

Then all thoughts of friendship were driven from her mind as she saw what was in Ultron's.

That was peace of a kind, certainly. The "Rest In Peace" kind.

She might have her red wrapped around the Winter Soldier's sense of self like the talons of a bird of prey, but Pietro reacted to her distress faster than it did.

He. Not it.

The Winter Soldier was a he, not the it HYDRA had tried to make of his shell of self. It was what HYDRA did best, to try and turn people into things. It had started before the sceptre, but of course the sceptre had helped. They'd spun its raw mindstuff into thread and puppet strings. To Wanda they had given the puppeteer's side of the strings, with hook into heads, hooks into hearts, hooks into reality.

To the Winter Soldier they had given the puppet's side of the strings.

Like had called to like and now here Wanda was, with a pet assassin and a genocidal robot to stop.

Twist and turn and run and run.

Away they went, Pietro, Wanda and the Winter Soldier, but of course the Avengers were there and in the way.

At least they were also in Ultron's way.

Ultron, with his teeth and army of other selves, was more than a match for the Avengers and down they went. One.

No.

"The Black Widow," Wanda told the Soldier. "Find her. Keep her from Ultron."

The Widow knew too much to fall into Ultron's hands. Wanda knew about the secrets Romanova had spilled out into the world when HYDRA's outer shell had crumbled, and knew there was far worse trapped inside her head -- the red had given her a front-row sit to some of them.

Monsters in red, both of them. Trapped and twisted into the playthings of war engines.

The Winter Soldier left, with no acknowledgement of her order. There was no need.

"Can you stop this thing?" the Captain asked her, moments later, turning away from the voices in his ear. 

She could try. She had to; people would die if she did not.

She focused her whole being in the task of saving these people -- _her_ people. Doing so did not, thankfully, break her connection to Pietro. It did not, unthankfully, break her connection to the Winter soldier, either.  
The bus stopped, in a screech of metal like an inhuman scream.

Wanda staggered and fell. She fell more from the absence of anyone to catch her -- no Pietro, not even a Winter Soldier -- than anything else. 

She resented Pietro for this, but she resented herself more, that she would expect it. Her brother was only human.

She did not know if she was, too. She was more than her frail mortal shell; she was more than the mind inside her skull. She was perhaps even more than the red.

She and Pietro followed the Captain to his little ship. The man at the controls did not like her; she did not like him.

Still, when the Captain took the controls, she went to talk to the former pilot. He had experience of mind control, he had said. She would know how.

"The sceptre," he said. "It gets into your mind." He stopped. Hesitated. "Your power. It's different, red instead of blue."

She shrugged. It was as good a description of the gulf between the two as English could form. "How did you come free of it?"

"The Widow." He smiled, something fond that made her heart ache. "Punched me in the face until my brain righted itself."

Perhaps the Widow would do the same to the Soldier and he would be free of Wanda, and she of him. It would have been nice to think so, but she was Wanda Maximoff and she did not believe in happy endings.

She nodded at the pilot and moved to go.

"Hey."

She stopped.

"What do I call you?"

She stilled. It was a powerful thing, a name. To offer him her name now would be an offer she could not take back. 

"What do I call you?" She turned the question back on him. A name was a powerful thing, all the stories said so, and she would not give her own first. The stories told of fair exchange, too, so she would trade his name for hers. With his name she might see what the blue had left inside his mind. Or she might not.

Truth be told, she did not need his name. It was easier with a name, especially one freely given, but it was possible without one.

"Clint," he said and he could not have sounded more American if he had tried.

She reached out, tentatively, and touched the edges of his self. It was his name, but not the only one.

"Clint?" she repeated. "It is not what the Captain calls you."

He nodded. "Cap uses codenames in the field. Mine is Hawkeye."

And there it was, the other part of his self, his other name.

"Hawkeye," she repeated again. She had him now.

"You gonna keep doing that?" he asked.

She tilted her head.

"Repeating my name."

"No," she said. "I have it now. It's _mine_."

She did not even need to smile her reddest smile for him to jump to his feet.

"What the fuck -- what _the fuck_ \-- "

"I am sorry," she said and pulled back to her all the red that she could. "I did not wish to frighten you."

"You didn't." He sat down. It was a lie, of course, Wanda did not need the red to know this, but she let him have it.

"Clint," she said. "I will make you this promise: if I have need to bring you down, you will see me coming."

"Thanks," he said. This was not a lie. She did not know how long they would be allies, nor him, but they could show each other this much respect.

She nodded.

They spent the rest of the way in silence -- well. As much silence that could be had with Pietro sleeping against the jet's back wall. These long runs took a lot out of him and Wanda could always tell when he'd overexerted himself. He snored then.

Once, he had snored and slept for three days and she had been afraid he would not wake up and leave her alone in a world that was too slow for both of them.

But Pietro would wake, this time. She was sure of it.

There was no version of this story where Pietro did not wake.

Pietro woke not much before the jet landed. Neither he nor Wanda knew where they were -- was this America? New York perhaps, with streets unpaved with gold, unlike what she'd been told.

No matter. Wherever this place was, Stark was there. His presence was a smudge of red against the fabric of the world; she did not need to see him to know he was there. Banner was with him, no trace of her red left within the green inside his mind.

Banner was a monster, but not half as much as Stark, who had spilled blood enough that he might drown in it if she were to push him.

She turned her mind back to freeing the Soldier. Seeing Stark had reminded her of the monster she'd swore she'd never become and yet, there she was, another's life tied to her own will.

It was not a single link that tied her to the Soldier, not even multiple strings like a puppeteer's. It was a rope, made of a hundred thousand braided threads.

She broke threads, one by one. Here was his voice, which she gave back to him. Here was the imperative to guard Pietro like herself -- she hesitated, but free will did not accept external conditions, so she unmade it. Here was...

She knew not what. It was a snarl of threads all tangled up. Bucky, the Winter Soldier, Barnes, they were all in there. This was not her mess. He'd been like that when she'd found him.

She had her own tangle inside her heart -- Wanda, the Witch and Pietro. Pietro was her twin, all speed and jagged edges. The Witch often whispered of dark forests and lonely paths, a witch's way. Wanda was whatever else was left, a girl and a ticking bomb. 

Whoever he was when she was not inside his head was for him to decide, not her. She left the tangle alone.

"Wanda. Wanda!" It was Pietro, he was shouting.

She turned to look at him. "Yes?"

"You're glowing," Clint said.

So she was. She focused and pulled the red back into herself; a vision struck her: the Widow standing over the Soldier as he punched down into the cradle, the impact of his metal fist against the vibranium echoing to her halfway across the world. She breathed out and let it go, focusing on seeing through her own eyes alone. Far away, another thread snapped.

Hearing the Widow's voice come from the Captain's earpiece, tiny and tinged with red, came as no surprise. "Ultron is regrouping in Sokovia. We'll meet you there."

"We?" The Captain's frown came though despite the cowl. 

"Me and your pal with the metal arm. We busted the cradle."

"You did what?!" Stark's squawk might have been funny, if Wanda did not suspect him of wanting to twist the cradle from medical marvel to death machine.

"You're welcome, by the way." The Widow cut off communications right then. Wanda liked her, despite, in spite of the red.

"Let's roll, Capsicle," Stark said.

Wanda suppressed a sneer. They were here because the Captain allowed it so, it would not do to antagonise the man -- and he seemed fond of Stark for whatever foolish reason.

On the way to Sokovia, Wanda leaned against Pietro who leaned against her in return. She closed her eyes. She was not asleep and she was careful to let her work on freeing the Soldier -- Winter, she decided to call him, having touched the tangled mess of him, until he decided for himself who he was -- neither be visible nor distract her from her surroundings. 

Fraying the rope strand by strand by strand was taking far too long. If she wanted him free before the world ended, she would have to do things differently.

She took a deep breath and opened her eyes. Not the eyes that saw by sunlight, but the eyes that saw by moonlight, the eyes of the witch, and she opened them in the Alps, the better part of a century ago.

There was Winter -- who was not yet the Soldier, merely a soldier -- on a train with the Captain by his side.

Winter fell.

Again and again and again the moment replayed itself. Winter fell. The Captain could not save him, Winter fell.

This was a focal point. Who the Soldier was -- who Winter was and all the rest of them -- had started here, in these snowy mountains, with this fall.

Wanda closed her hands into fists, then spread her fingers. The fall stopped before it began, Winter holding onto the railing, the Captain reaching for him. Wanda pulled the rope into what passed for corporeal reality in this part of Winter's selfscape. It stained her fingers red with blood and the start of it merged with her hair. She wrapped it around Winter's grasping hand, the end of it fluttering in the wind.

Red against white against black. There was a story there, not hers, not his. (Yes, of course, his -- Snow White sleeping like death under glass.)

Wanda slowly closed her fingers and the fall from grace returned to its normal course. Winter fell and with him the rope, stretching down into pain and the unknown.

The rope snapped.

Wanda fell to her face on the plane floor. She pushed herself up. They were staring at her, these men who associated with Stark willingly. If they asked, she had no answer for them.

"It is done?" Pietro asked, Sokovian with an accent; he always had trouble switching his accent right off when he switched languages.

"Yes," she said. The sigh of relief she breathed out was shared by two chests.

In Sokovia, with Winter and the Widow, was a thing of legends and myths -- Thor. He himself had little innate magic, but Mjølnir was a thing of beauty, sorcery of the kind she could only aspire to, for now. But all hammer that it was, _Whosoever holds this hammer, if he be worthy, shall possess the power of Thor._ was a double-edged sword.

If Thor were to become unworthy... Well. It was witchy work, to kill gods.

Winter looked at Wanda. It was done indeed; she could feel him no more than she could the Widow. If she were in the habit of lying to herself she might have said she did not miss him, but truth be told she was gladder for his freedom than sad for his loss.

While Wanda had not-quite-slept on the plane, Pietro had taught the others enough Sokovian to hasten the evacuation along. When he went to the Widow, she told him in Sokovian there was no need. Thor had his Allspeak.

Winter knew the language from Wanda. There was no need for Pietro to ask, and he did not.

The evacuation went. It could have gone much better, it could have gone much worse, but it went. Wanda lost herself into a red haze for most of it -- a few times she even forgot herself entirely and saw through Pietro's eyes -- but the evacuation went.

And then, like a flash of lightning, one of Pietro's mercury thoughts, _Goodbye, sister_.

The rest was silence.

When Wanda returned to herself, she had Ultron's beating heart in her hand. She was not going to play into the Witch's hands and eat it, but she would destroy it.

She sent red coursing into the heart until it dissolved into nothing, then set herself to doing the same to Ultron.

It may have begged for her mercy. She could not have cared less.

After that, she let Clint find her and bring her back to the floating boat.

"Your brother saved my life," he said.

What could she say in reply? There were no words.

"Hey." Winter now with a smile like Barnes. "Red."

Him, she listened to.

"He's in medbay. Bullet ricochet. Wasn't fast enough. Sorry. A life for a life." It was only when he spoke the last few words that she realised he'd been speaking Sokovian.

By that point, she was already racing down the hallway.


End file.
